Page from a Spanish text manuscript version of Andrea Alciato’s 1531 Emblemata sold for $9000 (£7030) at Swann in New York.
Shown above is a page with one of the 211 woodcuts, cut from a printed edition – perhaps a 1573 Plantin edition of the Latin text, whose emblem order it matches – with which it is illustrated.
This ‘Emblemas’ manuscript, however, differs substantially in its text from that of the first Spanish translation, Bernadino Daza’s version of 1549. In a worn 18th century binding, it was formerly in the collection of the Cervantes scholar, Karl Ludwig Selig (1926-2012).
The sale took place on October 24.
